1. Field of the Invention
The act of cutting paper documents into narrow strips is commonly referred to as shredding. The shredding of documents is considered to be essential for destroying classified documents, documents referring, to credit card accounts and other confidential papers. Many shredding machines have been proposed including large stand alone machines and smaller desk top machines. In most business and government offices a substantial amount of paper work is considered to be harmful to the best interests of the establishment if disclosed.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Shredding machine described in the prior art use meshing circular cutting means or an arrangement of sliding knife blades to shred paper passing beneath the cutting means. U.S.Pat. No. 2,409,203 Gale, describes a shredding machine for slicing a cellulosic material using razor blades passing through slots with the material to be shredded between the blades and the slots. A similar design is described by Cassidy in U.S. Pat. No. 1,798,645. Pertinent to the present invention is U.S.Pat. No. 3,620,461 Pelleschi. The Pelleschi patent describes a pair of cooperating shearing rolls each having a plurality of substantially parallel cutting edges which shred paper passing between the cutting edges.